Process and Product
I've had a number of discussions recently about the way that adults interact with each other. Some of it has been a direct result of some of the events I talked about last week. Some has been unrelated, as I've had interlocking conversations that spring from different source events. Since I've been trying to organize my thoughts on the topic, I thought I'd organize them here.
When people interact with each other, there are both processes of interaction and results of that interaction. In a healthy system of interaction, these are tied together and feed back on each other. We learn to have some anticipation and expectation of what will happen as a result of our actions, whether we term these things to be benefits or consequences, and we modify our actions as well as out expectations based upon what we observe and experience.
While this applies to almost all interactions at some level (for instance, you expect, when buying coffee, that there will be a verbal exchange of information between yourself and the coffee seller regarding quantity and type of coffee and quantity and type of money, and not, say, interpretive dance involving the bartering of a dead weasel for the right to put your mouth under a spigot. At least, under most circumstances.), I'm particularly interested in interpersonal interactions.
In healthy folks, there's a process of interaction that develops and sustains a desired relationship. It's often a lot of work (though the 'work' itself can be its own joy, and the interaction is valued for its own sake) and a lot of time, and a lot of guessing and getting it wrong. Folks outside of it sometimes only see the results, and out of desire for something like that of their own, try to find a shortcut.
There are people who have their own ideas on how people interact but are unable to modify these ideas to accommodate errors in their theory and individual differences. This sort of thinking gives you the guy who buys his girlfriend flowers because girls like flowers, never mind that she's asthmatic or thinks cut flowers are depressing (they die, you know). This gives you the girl who tries to 'train' her partner using guides the The Rules and then, when it goes wrong, wails that she doesn't understand, because she did everything that she was supposed to do. It was supposed to work.
There are people who are convinced that if you get the desired result or its close-enough appearance, it doesn't matter how you got there. This is the sort of thinking that gives you harp-string-tense families where no one ever complains because complaining means something would be wrong. This gives you the couple that gets married because they think they should be married, even though they're not happy together, in hopes that the display and the ceremony will make things right. It looks good until you look at the details. The ends justify the means is an argument used largely by folks who benefited from the ends.
These are people who blame others for not fitting into the roles that they were assigned.
These are dysfunctional systems. These are people who simply do not get that the benefits are the result of a functional relationship that relies on complex interaction and feedback to keep it functional. They see the result and at some level simply cannot understand the concept of the process behind it; in the worst cases they cannot see the other people as equal individuals.
There's a disconnect between the process of interaction and the results of the interaction. There's no feedback, no responsibility, some basic lack of understanding that the world inside the head of the folks making the poor choices (or worse, imposing their poor choices on others) is not the same as the real world, which is infinitely complex and mutable. Worse yet, when things do go wrong, they'll blame the real world for failing their theories. They'll say that they had the best intentions, because really, in their own minds they probably did (for example, they wanted people -mostly themselves- to be happy, and besides, very few people enter into any interaction with the intention or expectation of harm), as if this excused them from the consequences of their actions. The fact that you did not mean harm does not mean the harm done is not your responsibility, particularly if your actions were based on a flawed and dysfunctional view of how people interact.
I've often said that life is mostly a matter of dynamic equilibrium, balance, and successive approximation. We're all making this up as we go along and we're all in this together. We get things wrong. Sometimes we get them badly wrong. It's not a matter of not getting things wrong, it's a matter of understanding why things went wrong and what you can learn as a result. It's a dance and we sometimes step on each other's toes.
If you're a healthy person, or at least trying to be a healthy person, you genuinely try to understand your errors and learn from them, in hopes that you can correct the damage you've done and avoid doing more in the future. If given guidelines, you try to understand the spirit of the guidelines rather than just the hard lines. You do not look for loopholes.
This is not something that most people need to have explained to them, even if it something that we all have to relearn from time to time.
You understand that you do not have the ability or even the right to completely control a situation, and therefore there will be results that you did not intend and these will need to be addressed.
If you did the wrong thing for what you felt was the right reason, then the reason should also be reason enough for you bear the consequences as well. The rules exist so you'll think about it before you break them, if for no other reason*. If you did the wrong thing for the wrong reason, you've not got a lot of room to stand on. Sorry, bud.
You try. You fail. You try again. You fail better. You keep learning and growing. If you're lucky, you grow closer to the people that matter to you. The first step and the last step of that is having other people matter.
*thank you, PTerry, who always deserves a footnote. Also, since I'm thanking people, I'd like to also say thanks to perigee, who has had some smart and sharp things to say on this topic as well.
eta: reset security to public as someone wanted to link to it. I'll relock it to friends-only (my default) in a few days.
eta 10/8: Set back to friends-locked again.
When people interact with each other, there are both processes of interaction and results of that interaction. In a healthy system of interaction, these are tied together and feed back on each other. We learn to have some anticipation and expectation of what will happen as a result of our actions, whether we term these things to be benefits or consequences, and we modify our actions as well as out expectations based upon what we observe and experience.
While this applies to almost all interactions at some level (for instance, you expect, when buying coffee, that there will be a verbal exchange of information between yourself and the coffee seller regarding quantity and type of coffee and quantity and type of money, and not, say, interpretive dance involving the bartering of a dead weasel for the right to put your mouth under a spigot. At least, under most circumstances.), I'm particularly interested in interpersonal interactions.
In healthy folks, there's a process of interaction that develops and sustains a desired relationship. It's often a lot of work (though the 'work' itself can be its own joy, and the interaction is valued for its own sake) and a lot of time, and a lot of guessing and getting it wrong. Folks outside of it sometimes only see the results, and out of desire for something like that of their own, try to find a shortcut.
There are people who have their own ideas on how people interact but are unable to modify these ideas to accommodate errors in their theory and individual differences. This sort of thinking gives you the guy who buys his girlfriend flowers because girls like flowers, never mind that she's asthmatic or thinks cut flowers are depressing (they die, you know). This gives you the girl who tries to 'train' her partner using guides the The Rules and then, when it goes wrong, wails that she doesn't understand, because she did everything that she was supposed to do. It was supposed to work.
There are people who are convinced that if you get the desired result or its close-enough appearance, it doesn't matter how you got there. This is the sort of thinking that gives you harp-string-tense families where no one ever complains because complaining means something would be wrong. This gives you the couple that gets married because they think they should be married, even though they're not happy together, in hopes that the display and the ceremony will make things right. It looks good until you look at the details. The ends justify the means is an argument used largely by folks who benefited from the ends.
These are people who blame others for not fitting into the roles that they were assigned.
These are dysfunctional systems. These are people who simply do not get that the benefits are the result of a functional relationship that relies on complex interaction and feedback to keep it functional. They see the result and at some level simply cannot understand the concept of the process behind it; in the worst cases they cannot see the other people as equal individuals.
There's a disconnect between the process of interaction and the results of the interaction. There's no feedback, no responsibility, some basic lack of understanding that the world inside the head of the folks making the poor choices (or worse, imposing their poor choices on others) is not the same as the real world, which is infinitely complex and mutable. Worse yet, when things do go wrong, they'll blame the real world for failing their theories. They'll say that they had the best intentions, because really, in their own minds they probably did (for example, they wanted people -mostly themselves- to be happy, and besides, very few people enter into any interaction with the intention or expectation of harm), as if this excused them from the consequences of their actions. The fact that you did not mean harm does not mean the harm done is not your responsibility, particularly if your actions were based on a flawed and dysfunctional view of how people interact.
I've often said that life is mostly a matter of dynamic equilibrium, balance, and successive approximation. We're all making this up as we go along and we're all in this together. We get things wrong. Sometimes we get them badly wrong. It's not a matter of not getting things wrong, it's a matter of understanding why things went wrong and what you can learn as a result. It's a dance and we sometimes step on each other's toes.
If you're a healthy person, or at least trying to be a healthy person, you genuinely try to understand your errors and learn from them, in hopes that you can correct the damage you've done and avoid doing more in the future. If given guidelines, you try to understand the spirit of the guidelines rather than just the hard lines. You do not look for loopholes.
This is not something that most people need to have explained to them, even if it something that we all have to relearn from time to time.
You understand that you do not have the ability or even the right to completely control a situation, and therefore there will be results that you did not intend and these will need to be addressed.
If you did the wrong thing for what you felt was the right reason, then the reason should also be reason enough for you bear the consequences as well. The rules exist so you'll think about it before you break them, if for no other reason*. If you did the wrong thing for the wrong reason, you've not got a lot of room to stand on. Sorry, bud.
You try. You fail. You try again. You fail better. You keep learning and growing. If you're lucky, you grow closer to the people that matter to you. The first step and the last step of that is having other people matter.
*thank you, PTerry, who always deserves a footnote. Also, since I'm thanking people, I'd like to also say thanks to perigee, who has had some smart and sharp things to say on this topic as well.
eta: reset security to public as someone wanted to link to it. I'll relock it to friends-only (my default) in a few days.
eta 10/8: Set back to friends-locked again.